Guide and instruction on how to run the Dreamcast truck game "18 Wheeler American Pro Trucker" on Pc.

18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker (wiki)
is a truck racing game that was developed by Sega-AM2 and published by Sega.
This game was first released in arcades in 2000, but later the game was released to the Sega Dreamcast in
2001. There are 5 trucks in the game, and it have 4 Gameplay modes: Arcade, Parking Challenge, Score
Attack and Versus.

You may ask why the hell you want to run this old game on Pc, well the answer is simple because it is hard to find this game you can not longer buy both hardware or game as it is a Dreamcast console game
it is not produced anymore and is hard to find.
This game may give some inspiration to game developers to improve the truck games on Pc.
What is good about this game is that is has good gameplay and it's challenge and have good truck sounds and physic, etc. also It have high and low gear shift change that most truck games are missing.

Ok now to the Guide:
In this Guide I'll simply show how to run this game on Pc with nullDC emulator program.
Just follow this steps carefully.

** Disclaimer: I do not take any responsibility for any damage arising by using this program. This is
only for test purpose, You do it at own risk.

What is needed:
- Sega Dreamcast Emulator program "nullDC"
- Sega Dreamcast Bios files
- and the "18 Wheeler American Pro Trucker.cdi" CDI game image file.

Step1:
Download Sega Dreamcast Emulator program "nullDC v1.0.3" from it's site:
http://www.emudev.org
As it is stated in the Readme it also needs "VisualC++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Runtimes" get it at Microsoft

Step2:
Extract the nullDC_103.rar file with winrar to any folder or drive you like example C:\
The nullDC emulator has most plugins dll files included you only need to download the Dreamcast Bios files separate.
You can use Google to find the Dreamcast Bios files. If you are lazy and you can't find the bios files then
it get it from megaupload

Step3:
After you have downloaded the bios files (dc_boot.bin) and (dc_flash.bin) copy it to your dir .. \nullDC\data

Step4:
Download the "18 Wheeler American Pro Trucker.cdi" CDI iso image file from: www.coolrom.com
It's a rar file 169MB compressed with winrar and after you extract it it is around 693MB
After you download it then extract it with winrar to any folder you like example to C:\.


Step5:
Now it's time to run the Emulator program "nullDC" and to make some configuration.
Run the program "nullDC_1.0.3_mmu.exe" and click and go to Options > Select Plugins >
There by default 3 first rows for Graphic and GDRom and Sound is already select.
You only need to select you Controller type to keybord.
Under Maple tabb Port A sett your controller type to "nullDC Controller [WinHook] ..." It's first one. (**see Pic1 below)

After that is done click Ok button there.

Step6:
Now you can Config your keyboard keys for Player1.
Click and go to Options > Maple > Port A > Config Keys For Player 1
There in that new dialog windows you can assign your keyboard keys you like. (**see Pic2 below)

Step7:
After all setting is done now you can load the cdi image and run the game.
Click File > Normal Boot

Step8:
A Select Image file small windows appears there click the browse button ... (**see Pic3-1 below)
Find and select the CDI image file ""18 Wheeler American Pro Trucker.cdi"" you downloaded and click ok Open.

Step9:
That was all Now the game will start. After some sec the black screen and text appears now the game will not start
until you press the Start key button if you have assigned other start key than press that i had just to use Enter key to start the game.

Step10:
Also if you want to run the game in Full screen just press the Alt and Enter key.
To exit the emulation and if you want close end the game you can click File > Exit.

That was all you need to know how to run this game on PC.
I have tested this DC 18 wheeler game on my PC Intel® Core™2 Quad Cpu and grafic card ATI 4850 on Windows XP Sp3 without any problem it worked great.

Credits:
Me =) for writing this guide and testing and finding out how to make this truck game work on Pc
and off course Credits and Thx goes to the creators of the excellent emulator program nullDC without that it would not be possible. and last Credits to Sega-AM2 for creating this truck game.

Also here is some other information.
* The nullDC have no support plugins for gamepads, You can use instead external programs like Xpadder or Joy2Key to emulate a gamepad. Maybe this will be fixed in features releases.

* The nullDC is not only emulator program for Dreamcast there is 2 more (demul and Chankast) but nullDC is best that works great. with no lag or graphic bugs.
Also the demul emulator can run the 18 wheeler game too but it has some bugs and can not render the game
well and it show missing textures and graphic glitches. nullDC is only emulator that can run it perfect.

Some info from nullDC readme file:
- If you are asked to enter the date and time every time you try to run a game then the flash file might got
corrupted. Try going to the "data" folder and deleting the "dc_flash_wb.bin" file. This will probably fix the
problem. If not, then the original dc_flash.bin file you provided is corrupted. Redump it from your Dreamcast.

Some info from Chankast readme file:
- Before starting the emulator in order to change any settings make sure that the "dc_bios.bin" and "dc_flash.bin" files do not have read-only attributes or the changes will not be saved.
- Attempting to change the time and date options may result in corrupted "dc_bios.bin" and "dc_flash.bin" files.

More Screenshots can be found here: www.klov.com

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